Majority of UK businesses still rely on passwords

Nearly three-quarters of UK businesses continue to use usernames and passwords as an access management control, new figures suggest.

The Siemens Insight Consulting report found just 22 per cent of organisations have a single sign-on method of authentication.

"The lack of single ‘sign-on’ awareness together with reliance on passwords is a major concern," said Colin Robbins, principal consultant at Insight Consulting, in a statement.

The survey shows that 62 per cent of respondents admit that their organisation has no information security management system in place and half were unsure whether access rights were blocked once an employee leaves the company.

More than 70 per cent revealed that they find it difficult or impossible to produce audit reports on network, application and data access.

"What has become clear is that many companies are simply not doing enough, or are even in many cases wholly unaware of the existing risks to their business and how to go about managing the resources available to them," added Robbins.

However, 74 per cent of UK organisations said they were considering new identity management tools.

The study questioned 259 employees in the IT services and solutions sectors.

Insight Consulting is the independent security, compliance and continuity consultancy of Siemens.

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